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Spinoza. 363

sonality is the key to the mystery of human existence ; it
unlocks every ward of immortality.

First know thyself, and all things see,
God and thy fellow find in thee.
Around, within ; for thee is nought
Save what thou flndest in thy thought.

S P I N O Z A.*

By A, E. Kroeger

With the exception of Kant, no modern philosopher pro-
bably has been the subject of so much criticism and notice
as Spinoza. Indeed, there still seems to hang around his
writings- a curious fascination, not the less remarkable in
that he still seems to be more or less of a puzzle to those he
fascinates. The cause of this interest is of a twofold charac-
ter ; first, the personal character of the man, which inspired,
as it still inspires, a reverence and admiration that extended
to his works, and then from these was reflected back to the
man with additional lustre. Second, the style, wherein his
chief work, the work by which he became known to later
ages, the EtJdcs, was composed, — a style, or method, which
he, in imitation of Descartes, called the geometrical method —
had about it a proud air of evidence, which aroused wonder
where it did not excite implicit faith.

That the personal character of Spinoza was that of a sin-
cere and thoroughly earnest searcher after the true in human
knowing, there can be no doubt ; but neither is it possible,
after a perusal of his letters, to deny the fact, that he was not
brave enough — had not character enough, as the Germans
would say — testate the result of his investigations with a
frankness disregarding all earthly consequences. Even in

* I. Benedict de Spinoza; his Life, Correspondence, and Ethics. ByR. Wil-
lis, M.D. London: Trubner & Co., 1870.

IL Benedicti de Spinozae Operae quae supersunt omnia. Ex editionibus prin-
cipibus denuo edidit et prsetatusest Carolus Hermanus Bruder. Lipsiae: Tauch-
nitz, 1843.

lU. The Science of Knowledge. Translated from the German of J. G. Fichte,
by A. E. Kroeger. Published by J. B. Lippincott & Co., Philadelphia, 18e8.

263

364 Spinoza.

his letters to his friend Oldenburg, Spinoza shows himself
timid and fearful of unpleasant results should he frank-
ly and fully speak out his inmost mind. Nay, the very
work, the Ethics, which remained unpublished during his
lifetime from that dread, breathes it on every page, to the
confusion and misapprehension of the reader; the word
"God" — though throughout the work it is used merely as an
equivalent for "substance" or "nature" — being retained, to-
gether with the words "immortality" and "freedom," whilst
the sole object of the book is to root out the three concep-
tions, signified in language by those words, from the human
mind forever.

That Spinoza should have written his work in a style and
method borrowed from mathematics, is to be explained partly
by the example set by Descartes, and partly by the extraor-
dinary development of the mathematical sciences at that time
— although the chief mover in that development, Leibnitz,
showed wisdom enough not to use the mathematical method
in philosophy — but perhaps also in part by reason of the ob-
scurity that this style promised to throw over subjects which
he had no intention of stating in their nakedness and with the
air of mathematical certainty — which, nevertheless, seemed
to be inseparably linked to it — a certainty, by the bye, which
is in general considerably overrated, for in the higher regions
of mathematics disputes are as endless, fruitless, vehement,
and absurd, because resting upon the same grounds, as in the
sciences of metaphysical physics and theology. And yet this
air of certainty excited the admiration of Lessing, Jacobi and
Goethe, and to them, though perhaps not to Lessing, hid a
deficiency of system which led Leibnitz to characterize it as
absurd and unintelligible ; led Kant, who had thoroughly
studied Spinoza, as is evident from the many places where he
mentions him, to consider it as one of the many previous one-
sided philosophies ; and led Fichte to declare, that, seizing
Spinoza's system as a whole, it was correct enough so far as
it went, but that, in so far as it utterly overlooked the moral
phenomenon in human life, it was but one part of a complete
system of knowledge, indeed simply the Theoretical Part of
the Science of Knowledge.

This latter deficiency, pointed out by Fichte, is in the same

26 J

Spinoza. 365

way, as it may here be well enough to remark, a conspicuous
feature of those metaphysical disquisitions wherewith the
prominent modern works of physical science are surcharged ;
for whereas in these disquisitions the intellectual (theoreti-
cal) faculty of man is quietly, from the mere fact of its being
a fact, assumed as such fact, the moral (practical) faculty,
which surely manifests and has at all times manifested
itself in the same way as a fact, is either merely over-
looked, treated as if it did not exist, or, in the manner
of Spinoza, treated with most absolute confusion of lan-
guage as part of the intellectual faculty, — with polemical
asides against those who point out the fact. This deficiency
of system, when consciously planned, as in the case of
Spinoza and the last mentioned class 'of arguers, has its
ground in the opinion, that, by admitting two facts of hu-
man knowledge — the one asserting an intelligent knowing
of things, and the other an absolute, practical, moral
acting upon things, men can never arrive at a unit system,
and that to arrive at such a system is the absolute end, and
is moreover the only means to gain a comprehension of the
universe. — Now, to this opinion the following suggestion
might be made : supposing this were so, supposing you had
succeeded in tracing all the phenomena of the universe back
in time to a unit — you may call it a unit faculty, power, mo-
tion, or simply one, as you like, — would you not, before you
<!ou]d trace back from your present billions of phenomena to
this unit phenomenon, have had to pass in a regressus from
two to one? Now, since all the rest of the regressus is easy
•enough and may be at once granted — though, being infinite,
it is absurd for you to undertake it — ^you might as well try
and make clear to your mind the problem which will con-
stitute your final difficulty : how to proceed from two to
one in such a manner that in that one, or iinit, there shall be
absolutely nothing else contained than a one. Is it possible,
conceivable, thinkable to do so ? or must you not think this
one, in order to explain the evolution of a two out of it, as
something else than one? Must you not, supposing you
think it as force, think it as having also degrees? if you
think it as motion, in Descartes' manner, as having direc-
tions? if you think it as a faculty, as having objects? In

2 6 5

366 Spinoza.

short, must you not always think this one as synthetical ? —
which means, as constituted so, that you cannot think or con-
ceive it without another conception forcing itself upon your
mind along with it. If to this you reply, " Yes " — and it is
impossible to see how you can avoid doing so — then you
might as well at once give up the thought of reducing all
phenomena to a final one as an absurd and contradictory
undertaking, and save yourself infinite labor, and the world
a mass of useless — nay, obstructive — rubbish.

Bat if we abandon oneness in system, do we not lapse into
that dreadful dualism which has been ever the curse of man-
kind? First, there is really no reason in the world why a
dualistic system should be worse or better than a unit sys-
tem ; but secondly and chiefly, is it not all the same, since it
is we who make the system, our intellect which constructs it,"
,and our knowledge which knows it; and that if it were
necessary for the ego to have even a triad system, the ego
would just the same remain the imperishable one which it
is, and the universe retain all its wonderful symmetry and
multiplicity ?

Moreover, that famous science of mathematics, the cer-
tainty whereof is supposed to rest upon that unit principle —
which principle was thus taken by Spinoza as necessary also
for a science of human knowing — has just now itself appeared
as utterly unable to stand upon a unit, and geometry as ut-
terly without a single axiom unless directions in space are
presupposed, and hence duplicity, &c. Nay, it was this very
defect of mathematics — if defect that can be called without
which mathematics would not be — which drove* Leibnitz
from that science to philosophy, and there, discovering to
him the secret of the synthetical character of mathematics,
as well as of everything in human knowledge, brought dis-
tinctly before his vision the Calculus ! For there it became
clear to him how knowledge, to be knowledge, cannot think
a one, complete, compact and absolute totality in itself with-
out at the same thinking an infinity of directions in it; can-
not think a circle without thinking it also as an infinite
polygon ; not a unit, without thinking it also as an infinity
of fractions ; and vice tiersa in each case. To be sure, you,
who do not comprehend it, can stop me at every additional
2 6 6

Spinoza. 367

fraction as I proceed, adding i+i+i, &c., and demonstrate to
me clearly that I have not yet my unit — my "actual infinite,"
as Leibnitz expresses it — and cannot get it at any stopping-
place ; but the very stipnlation was that I should add ad
infinitum, and it is this stipulation which increases the frac-
tion to a unit, and makes the infinite actual and calculable.
Most emphatically, a curved line is not straight ; and a cir-
cle, therefore, wherever you interrupt my drawing it, is still
a curve and not composed of straight lines ; — but our very
agreement is that it is an infinity of straight lines, and that
hence you must at no point interrupt me. Both statements
are equally correct, yours and mine ; yours from the stand-
point of an infinity of time, which never reaches the first
original fundamental difficulty, and in its infinite regressus
is therefore always perfectly correct ; mine, from the stand-
point of absolute totality, which looks into and through that
difficulty. But do not now bewail on that account the sad,
desperate condition of human reason, which has two views
of every matter, nor rave about Kantian skepticism, when
there never lived one who could lay claim to a more abso-
lute knowledge than Kant ; but consider maturely this : — I
should be foolish to hold that my statement, as expressed
above, were the true one, and yours the false ; both are abso-
lutely true ; but you may hold yours and not comprehend
mine, whilst I cannot comprehend mine without comprehend-
ing yours. Hence the supreme truth rests not in either
view, or indeed in any view, but in this : to be able to see
clearly that reason could not be reason unless it regarded
the circle and the unit, for instance, in both those ways •,
and that if this were not so, if this duplicity were not in rea-
son and constituted reason, you would not be able to argue
with me, nay, you would not even be able to eat (as Fichte
says somewhere) the bread and butter that you carry to your
mouth, since neither you nor the bread and butter would
exist, and indeed this whole universe would vanish into
nothingness.

Certainly, if this clear insight, this surveying at one glance
the whole field of knowledge, and thus becoming able to im-
mediately prove every possible instance of a knowledge, and
hence ail things — since all things exist to rational beings,Qnly

2 6 7

368 Spinoza.

as knowledge — by the only absolutely satisfactory test, that,
if this particular instance of a knowledge were not as it is,
reason could not be reason, and hence neither a question
could be asked concerning it, nor an answer desired ; if this
absolute certainty in all actual and possible phenomena of
life, and the unwavering self-sufficiency and reliance result-
ing therefrom, can be called skepticism,' then Kant was a
skeptic. But at this clear insight it was impossible for Spi-
noza to arrive, from the very fact that he chose the geome-
trical method for the elaboration of his investigation. For
that method necessarily prevented him from going to the
ultimate phenomenon before mentioned, the phenomenon of
the synthetical character of the ego, and kept him halting
in the fegressus at a point chosen ad libitum,, which point
thus became his fundamental axiom. It will hereafter
appear that this arbitrarily chosen fundamental axiom in
Spinoza's regressus is the conception of Substantiality.

It may seem strange that an earnest and acute investigator
of a problem sljould adopt a method for his investigation,
which can be d priori shown to cancel the possibility of arriv-
ing at a solution of the problem, and be so blind to this its
nature ; yet the phenomenon is really not strange nor difficult
to explain, though this is not the place to explain it ; indeed
that blindness is so universal, that up to the discovery of
Kant all men labored under it; and, even since his discovery
was made public, only the smallest number of men have
worked their way out of it. That Spinoza was fully con-
scious of the problem — as, indeed, were Descartes, Leibnitz,
and most of the great minds of that age — is evident enough
from his letters, namely, the problem to discover a Science
of all knowing, which should set at rest forever all metaphy-
sical disputes, and furnish an indisputable basis for every
other science. In a letter to John Bresser on the best method
of arriving at absolute as distinguished from contingent
knowledge, Spinoza thus expresses this point : " From what

1 have now said, it clearly appears what the true method
must be and wherein it chiefly consists ; namely, in a knowl-
edge of pure intellect alone, its nature and its laws."

But this knowledge could clearly be obtained only from an
examination of the " intellect alone," causing it to arise as it

2 6 8

Spinoza. 369

were and construct itself before his own examining intellect,
and in this self-constructing revealing necessarily all the con-
ditions of its possibility, that is, " its nature and its laws."
In this way Fichte afterwards proceeded in his Science of
Knowledge ; but Spinoza, utterly regardless of his purpose,
and following the mathemathical method, took his start from
axioms; although thesevery axioms were, and always had
been, the points in dispute among philosophers. Now geom-
etry can very well 8ta.rt from axioms, for geometry does not
pretend to deduce its axioms from the ultimate " laws of the
intellect"; it takes space, point and line, simply as presup-
positions, from philosophy, and leaves it the duty of philoso-
phers to account for them as phenomena of the intellect ; in
short, geometry has nothing to do with the faculty of think-
ing, which faculty involves a duplicity, but simply with the
faculty of contemplation, by means of which it constructs.
But the science of philosophy, in the sense in which Spinoza
proposed it to himself, as seen above, has no earthly raison
d'etre if it does not build itself up without any axiom, and
from out of itself furnish all the axioms that any other sci-
ence requires.

In addition to this ruinous defect of starting with the very
axioms- in dispute, and to the still worse absurdity of pro-
ducing arbitrarily, at the commencement of each new part of
his Ethics, new axioms, to any extent it may suit his purpose
— a mode of proceeding by which anyone could easily build
upany imaginary science — there occurs at the very beginning
of the Ethics one of those word- subterfuges which run through
the whole book, and which are contemptible when he uses
them in such instances as " God," " freedom," and " immor-
tality"; and this use he indulges in continually, although
he himself warns against this abuse of words in the Second
Part of the Ethics, p. 47.

Take as an instance that very famous opening definition
of the Ethics wherein causa sui is defined as that the essence
or nature whereof includes existence. Now, here the word
causa is either utterly meaningless, or else surreptitiously car-
ries along the conception of cause, which, in the case applied
to "God" or "substance," would be the very point in dispute ;
so also tne word " existence" has here either the surrepti-
18 2 6 9

370 Spinoza.

tiously appended meaning of " existence in time," or else
none at all. Now, a thing, call it "A" if you please, exist-
ing in time, can, in no meaning of the word, be called its
own cause, since it would then have to be thought existing
previous to its existence in order to become thinkable as its
own effect. The phrase "self-cause," or " cause of itself," is,
therefore, utterly meaningless and absurd. The word "cause"
is simply inapplicable in the case. If existence does not
include time, however, and be here merely a — very awkward,
to be sure — metaphor for "being represented in mind," there
would again be no cause, in any sense of the word " cause"
— unless, as indeed is the case, the mind be taken as such
cause ; but, as this view is the only one dogmatists of every
description are incapable of entertaining, the definition would
have to be expressed thus : "To that which I cannot conceive
except as being represented in my mind, I cannot assign an-
other cause; hence I can assign no cause for it: hence I call it
causa sui." But I might just as well, to all intents and pur-
poses, call it X, or Y, or Z, or Nothing. Why not at once say
boldly, that it is absurd to apply any category of Being at
all to the conception of that totality of all the universe which
men call God, and which Spinoza calls alternately God, Na-
ture, or Substance; and that, just as well as call it God, we
might call it X, and confess that we could say no more about
it, since " every determination would be a negation," and an
infinity of determinations would only be increasing the
number of determinations and hence of negations. To this
argument Leibnitz, indeed, had ready to oppose the great
discovery of his Calculus, that the infinity of fractions do
not merely increase their number but involve the conception
of an " actual " unit, as the infinite straight lines of a curve
involve the circle, and that this totality remains complete
and determined in itself in spite of — nay, by virtue of — the
infinity of the determinations.

Having here touched the fundamental basis and error of
Spinoza's system — for the Ethics is a system, however unar-
tistically built up on a wrong method and upon arbitrarily
chosen axioms — let us improve the opportunity to enter upon
its thorough examination. It is even the paramount problem,
or subject of thought, of every self-conscious intelligence, no

2 7

Spinoza. 371

matter how low in grade, that ever looked upon itself and
the universe. It is, therefore, almost unnecessary to premise
that we enter upon it in a spirit of utmost reverence; but
having thus drawn off our shoes to tread the consecrated
ground, it is of equal importance to roll up our sleeves, so to
speak, and go to work in dead earnest, caring for no previ-
ous spoken or written word, but looking the thing calmly in
the face. Nor let any one be afraid that we shall thereby
lose sight of Spinoza ; on the contrary, it is he, though his
name be not mentioned always, who shall be continually
kept in view ; and let it be remembered, that with him falls
the whole present school of popular writers on the metaphy-
sics of physical science.

Let us, therefore, construct problematically the conception
of an infinite series of fractions, i + i + i, &c. &c. Now let
us attribute to one of these fractions a power to become con-
scious of itself. To become conscious of itself, its power so
to become conscious must evidently be somewhere checked,
thrown back upon itself ; for only thus can it become con-
scious that it has a power to become conscious, and hence
only thus can it become conscious. Thus checked, the frac-
tion becomes conscious of itself and of a check ; and doing
so must both relate and oppose the check to itself. Clearly,
the check cannot be itself, for the fraction is assumed as a
power to act and not to check itself ; in so far the check is,
therefore, opposed to it ; at the same time the check could
not check it, could have no influence upon it at all, were it
not related to it in some way. Now in so far as the fraction
should view that check as its opposite simply, it would
regard that check as the cause of its being checked, hence
under the conception of causality ; but in so far as it should
view that check as related to it, it would regard that check
as a self-imposed limitation, or as one of its attributes ; and
would thus regard the checkedness under the conception of
substantiality. In the first case it would establish a dis-
tinction of kind, as the common saying is, or a qualitative
distinction between itself and the check; in the second, a
■distinction of degree, or a quantitative distinction. It might
still further combine the two views together in a twofold
m^qiier, and thus arrive at four dijBFerent views of thei relation

^71

373 Spinoza.

between itself and the check ; bat these four different views
of regarding the relation of the mind to the universe we
must leave each one to trace out by his own industry, or by
referring to Pichte's Science of Knowledge. But furthermore :
to become conscious of the check it would have to ascribe to
itself such a power of becoming conscious of a check, a power
which we call sensation : and again, to become conscious of
itself as that which were being checked, it would have to
ascribe to itself a power to cast this sensation from out of
itself and behold it outside of itself, as it were, — a power
which is called contemplation. But still further, it could
not ascribe to itself a sensation generally, unless it ascribed
to itself a power to experience a series of sensations in suc-
cession, and thus a power to become conscious of a series
of time-vaom&nis ; nor a power of contemplation generally,
unless it ascribed to itself a power to become conscious of
a series of directions in it, and thus a power to contem-
plate Space; and as these two powers must both enter con-
sciousness, the Time-moments and Space-directions would
have to be related together ; and thus together with the first
consciousness of the imagined fraction there would be for it
a time and space universe filled up with directions moving
in succession — in other words, with matter.

Now, becoming conscious of itself as a fraction in such a
time and space universe, which universe it would necessarily
have to view as infinite in all directions — infinite in extent,
or size, because as a power to act it could never conceive
or think a finite check, beyond which it would not again
have the power to extend its activity ; infinite in smallness,
or divisibility, for the same reason ; and infinite at both ends
of time, beginning and end of time, again for the same reason,
— let us ask: How would it regard its relation to this infinity
of fractions which it encountered in all directions ? Clearly,
in the same way as it wonld become conscious of any single
fraction, namely, by disregarding or skipping over the infi-
nity of fractions into which it could re-divide every smallest
fraction, the very minutest grain of sand, and seizing that
infinity as a whole fraction, as a unit. Thus it would seize
the infinity of fractions in time and space of the universe as
one whole, as a unity and totality, and give it a new name —

2 72

Spinoza. 373

calling it, say, Universe, Nature, Substance, or God. To this
new conception of a totality it might now relate itself under
either of the two fundamental forms of relation already men-
tioned, substantiality and causality. If it viewed the total-
ity under the conception of causality, it would arrive at the
conception of a Cause of the world, or of its infinity of frac-
tions, and would view that world and itself as eflfects of that
cause. By doing so it would utterly overlook the peculiar
qualitative distinction between each of the infinite series
of fractions as also a unit, and this new unit of th& whole
series as simply a unit having no fractional element in it
whatsoever, and thus its causality conception of the new unit
would also have that character of time and sequence, which
it gave to the fractions. In short, the new conception would
be characterized as a creator of the world, preceding it in
time and calling it into existence, regulating each of its ac-
tions, and holding it by its power : in fine, the usual concep-
tion of God. The absurdity of applying to this conception
of the whole series of fractions what was applicable to the
fractions only as fractions, and what only their fractional
nature involved, would either be utterly disregarded, or
defiantly proclaimed as necessary and right, and thus the
conception of God would be in all modes and manners an-
thropomorphized as Cause, Creator, Artist, Person, Self-
conscious, Intelligence, Wrath, Love, Justice — and why not
add Red, Yellow, Hot, Cold, &c., ad infinitum ?

Or, secondly — and there can be only two fundamental
ways of relating two together, the fraction and the unit-^the
fraction would regard that relation under the conception of
Substantiality ; that is, as simply the conceived (thought or
represented) unity of the infinite series of fractions, which
fractions would thus be properly enough called its attributes.
(See Spinoza's Ethics, Part I., D, 3-6.)

For instance : you perceive, say a piece of gold. Through
your eye you get the sensation of yellow color, which sensa-
tion within you you cast out of yourself, and put in space as
a yellow body or substance ; through your touch you get the
sensation of hardness, which you also thus objectivate and
connect with the yellow body, i&c. «&c. ; in short, the infinite
attributes, which " your understanding seizes " thus in pro-
1 8 * ix— 18 2 7 T

374 Spinoza.

cess of time, you, at every moment that you endeavor to
think them, gather and shape into a unity, a substance, and
thereupon think them as " constituting the essence of that
substance." .What, then, is the substance — this gold, for in-
stance ? You cannot characterize or describe it in any other
way than by the different attributes you have experienced :
yellowish, hard, malleable, &c. In short, the substance is
nothing except the conceived unity of those attributes ; is
nothing at all in itself; but at the same time it accompanies
every conscious perception of attributes.

Now, in this manner the fraction — when thinking under
the category of substantiality — thinks the conception of
the totality of all objects or fractions. It is clear, therefore,
that whereas, if it thinks a fractional substance, it thinks it
as infinite only in its determinedness, it must think the sub-
stance of the totality or "God" as "unconditionedly infinite"
(Ethics, Pt. I., D, C & E) ; since whereas of the fractional sub-
stance you can "negate infinite attributes," as in the instance
of gold you can negate blueness, fluidity, &c., the conception
of the substance of the totality is the conception of all the
infinite attributes of all the infinite fractions.

Spinoza develops this view of " God" quite at length in the
first two parts of his Ethics, although the development is ac-
complished in an altogether arbitrary, empirical, and unsci-
entific way ; that is, none of the various propositions that
are made to follow the preliminary definitions, axioms,
&c., are logically derived from those preliminaries, nor are
they even arranged in an artistic or scientific consecutive-
ness, but they seem to be picked at random from the various
notions that chanced to flow through Spinoza's head, with no
other view than to illustrate the dogmatic axioms of those
preliminaries. That they do not lack connection with them,
and give to the whole work an air of unwavering unity, is
not therefore to be wondered at, since it could not possibly
happen otherwise.

It has already been seen that the conception of the Sub-
stance of any multiplicity is simply the represented unity of
that multiplicity ; hence under this conception the Substance
cannot be asserted to have existed previous to its attributes.
Hence the question of time does not enter their relation to the

2 7 J

Spinoza. 375

substance at all ; it is, under the category of substantiality,
altogether lost sight of; the view is, as Spinoza expresses it,
altogether suh specie CBternitatis. He to whom this view ap-
pears, on that account, as more profound than the view sub
specie temporis of the causality relation, thereby only shows
his blindness to the one-sidedness of stand-point he occupies.
Yet almost all the students of Spinoza have conceived it, on
this account only, as preeminently dignified and sublime.

The substance of the whole series of fractions being con-
ceived thus, that is, as not preceding that series, all that
occurs in the series can of course, when referred to the sub-
stance, be ascribed neither to any freedom nor to any neces-
sity in that substance. In a letter to Oldenburg, Spinoza
puts this as follows : — "I do by no means think that God is
subject to fate, destiny, or necessity ; but hold that all which
happens comes to pass by inevitable necessity from the
nature of God ; even as it is generally admitted that from the
nature of God it follows that God knows Himself. No one,
I imagine, will deny that such knowledge follows of neces-
sity from the divine nature ; yet no one can so understand
the proposition as to assume that God is subjected to fate or
necessity, but, on the contrary, that God freely, though at
the same time necessarily, knows Himself."

" Freely, though at the same time necessarily," is one of
those verbal mistakes, or subterfuges, which disfigure all
Spinoza's writings, and which, indeed, can scarcely be
avoided by men who hold one-sided views and attempt
to express them in language. The word " freely," in lan-
guage, means either nothing at all, or it means with pre-
ceding deliberation, with consciousnes of the freedom in
the act, with obstacles to oppose the act ; the overcoming
of which obstacles that word " freely" has precisely been
invented to characterize. Hence it cannot be used conjointly
with "necessarily." "When Spinoza says that "all which
happens comes to pass by inevitable necessity from the
nature of God," he means that the infinite series of frac-
tional attributes and conditions cannot be thought separate
from the thought of their common substance, God; hence
cannot be thought as being entered by any freedom of their

2 7 :,

376 Spinoza.

own, or interfered with by any chance. Under the "view of
eternity," all the changes in and of those fractions must be
thought as attributes of that substance, but to the substance
itself neither the words "necessity" nor "freedom" can be
applied ; and beyond this accepting of the changes as a fact,
which is unalterable and unchangeable, and which it is the
highest wisdom to accept as so fixed and unalterable, the
view of substantiality cannot and does not go. Here you
rest in the safe beatitude of — " it is so." This is the goal of
its philosophy, the goal of human and all possible rational
happiness. No more asking absurdly for a cause, no more
inquiring for a possible end. The end is itself: it is so;
there is the end.

In the same manner,. the other expression, "God knows
Himself," which occurs in the above letter, misleads, and
seems but the compromise of timidity with orthodoxy. What
does language mean when it says of a power that it " knows
itself? Either nothing at all, or that that power passes
through a series of successive conscious moments, in which
series and by which series it becomes aware of and knows
itself as that which is conscious in those moments. Now,
does Spinoza intend to characterize his substance by any
such description? In no manner! How could he? His God,
or substance, or nature, as the mere equivalent expressions
for " all the attributes of God " (Prop. 19, Part I.), is the
thought of all those attributes without any reference to their
time-succession; understanding and will, the elements of
consciousness, are therefore expressly exempted from that
thought of God (Part I., Prop. 17). There is no possibility of
any change in your conception of that totality, "God" (Part I.,
Prop. 19, 20, 21, &c.) ; and, with this negation of any change-
ability, it cannot possibly arrive at such a self-knowing. If
some one should hold, that a conception of self-knowing as
an activity without a successive series of moments is possi-
ble, and that Spinoza used the expression " self -knowing" to
describe such a conception, the answer is, first, that if Spi-
noza did so, he used language improperly ; and, secondly, a
request to describe in language such a peculiar self -knowing.
The description will be found impossible.

2 7 6

Spinoza. 377

Fo? these same reasons the predicate " existence," which
Spinoza attributes to his conception of a Substance (Part I.,
Prop. 7 & 11), either means nothing at all, or is a mere sub-
terfuge, such as Kant already clearly pointed out in Des-
cartes' atfc«mpted proof of the existence of a God. That cele-
brated proof had argued thus : the very thought of God — i.e.
as the totality of the realities — involves that of His existence ;
for if it did not,, all the realities would not be included in that
thought. Kant annihilated this proof at one blow, as follows :
either your conception of existence is already involved in that
of God, is merely an analyzed part of it, and if so your proof
is superfluous tautology ; or it is not involved in it, and you
now add it synthetically; but if you do this, you do the very
thing the right to do which is denied to you, and hence you
have to prove your right, or your assertion must be con-
sidered a begging of the question. Spinoza, in this much
worse than Descartes, commits the same error in two ways
(Parti., Proposition 7, B), as follows: "the substance can-
not be produced by something else"; of course not, when
once postulated as the conception of all ; " hence it must be
its own cause," which we' have already shown to be either a
wrong application of the word "cause" — which word and the
whole causal relation Spinoza himself, in his first three axi-
oms, defines as applicable only to the series of fractions —
and a mere tautology, or a begging of the question ; " hence
its essence necessarily involves its existence": and here the
word " existence" has either precisely the same meaning as
" essence," and thus adds nothing to it and is also a mere
tautology — and, in Definition 8, Spinoza really thus explains
it, though he calls it there " eternity" — or it surreptitiously
brings in from the life of the series of fractions the new em-
pirical conception of their existence. This existence they
have, however, only as fractions, and it has no element
of that " eternity" or " essence" which the analysis of the
word "substance" furnished Spinoza in Definition 8, and
cannot therefore be possibly applied to this substance,
since it contains no fractional element whatever ; but is,
on the contrary, simply the negation of everything fraction-
al. The re-occurrence qf these same subterfuges — as when
he speaks in Part I., Prop. 16 & 17, of God as " acting" and

277

378 Spinoza.

as " free cause," and, in a still worse way, Prop. 24, mark
where he speaks of God as the Cause of the beginning of the
existence of things (three misnomers, or subterfuges, in a
breath) — it were too tedious and too unprofitable to follow
here. Wherever they occur in the ethics, they perplex the
unbiased student, whilst from their surroundings they lose
their weight with the believers in a God.

The whole First Part of the Ethics is, if you clear off this
rubbish, nothing but a consistent enough illustration of the
manner in which one of the supposed fractions of an infinite
series must relate itself to the conception of the totality of
the series, if it thinks that totality under the category of sub-
stantiality. This totality is, then, an empty thought, neither
free nor necessitated ; it is as it is : and the infinite attributes
of the totality, though related to each other under the form of
cause and effect, are in relation to the totality even what they
are. They cannot be thought better or worse ; they cannot b©
thought free ; though neither can they be thought subject to
a capricious change ; they rest in eternity, and begin and fin-
ish in time. The substantiality -philosopher offers no expla-
nation — nay, scouts it; justly laughs at the causality -philoso-
pher, who imagines he has " explained". matters by equally
scouting the "it is as it is" principle of the substantiality-phi-
losopher, and who vociferates : We must have a cause ; there-
fore let us have a cause ; and since every cause precedes its
effect in time, our cause must have preceded in time, &c. &c.

That no injustice has been done to Spinoza by this charaa-
terization of the First Part of his Ethics appears conclusively
at the beginning of the Second Part, where he assigns to the
substance, God, two chief attributes : thinking and extension.
Aristotle appears to have been the first who made public,
and probably discovered, the separation and classification of
all phenomena of the fractional series under these two head-
ings; but the discovery that this separation included all
phenomena only in so far as they were conceived by the in-
tellect, or the theoretical faculty, and that in another faculty
of reason there was hidden an entirely independent series of
phenomena which could not be classified under either of those
headings, phenomena that had no extension — for goodness
is neither straight nor curved, nor a thinking — in their com-

2 7 8

Spinoza. 379

position; — this ultimate discovery, which clears up the whole
region of reason for now and ever, although brought into the
world by Jesus Christ, was not scientifically expounded till
Kant and Fichte demonstrated it.

Now, supposing we were to stop Spinoza at this opening
of his Second Part, and ask him why he ascribes to his
"Grod," as supreme attributes, these two, "Thinking and
Extension," what could he answer? Clearly only that he had
found none other in his consciousness ; that all phenomena
known to him were either of the one or the other kind.
Could any empiricism be more shallow? "Why these two,
and not rather one — say. Motion ? — as Descartes and Sweden-
borg attempted, more or less successfully, to show in their
respective Principia, and as our modern physicists of meta-
physical tendency love to proclaim; though, for that matter,
they might all take lessons in their favorite sciences, of
whose advances they so loudly boast, from Descartes and
from Swedenborg. The endeavor to trace out the correlation
of forces, so called, as being all merely so many variations
in the quantities and directions of motion, has by no Darwin
or Spencer of these days been so successfully attempted as
by Descartes two centuries ago; so that in his now almost
forgotten Principia the scholar finds general doctrines and
even special discoveries of physical science which come now-
a-days over to us from Europe, heralded as the great discov-
eries of the new millennium of science.

But that which is of importance to us here is the manner
in which Spinoza proves these two attributes to belong to
God. The proof rune thus :

1. The infinite series of fractions exhibits to every think-
ing fraction, amongst other phenomena, the phenomenon of
thinking.

2. All these phenomena of the fractions express the es-
sence of "God" in a certain way.

3. Hence the phenomenon of thinking is an attribute of
"God," or "God" is a thinking being.

See the 1st Prop, of the Second Part of the Ethics, and re-
member that all through the First Part Spinoza expressly
excluded these properties from "God" hecaxbse they belonged
to the fractions as fractions.

2 7 9

380 Spinoza.

The proof, that "God" is an extended being, takes, of
course, precisely the same syllogistical pathway in the 2d
Prop, of the Second Part, and its refutation is likewise to be
found in the First Part — that is, if the words "extension" and
" thinking" are to retain the same meaning when applied to
the totality which they had when applied to its fractions.
If they are not to be applied in that sense, the whole thing
is a subterfuge and juggler's trick: and Spinoza says that
they are not to be so applied ; that thinking is not to mean
understanding, will, &c., nor extension (see Prop. 12) divisi-
bility, &c.

And now, having exhausted the conception of "God" in its
two views, briefly from the stand-point of causality, and more
at length from the conception of substantiality, let us review
the result. From the stand-point of causality, I regard the
conception of the unit, which always accompanies that of the
infinite series of fractions, as the cause of that series, and
overlook the fact that it is altogether an arbitrary act of my
own, whereby I regard it as such cause. This overlooking
leads me to change the statement which alone would express
the truth, " I may regard the unit as the cause of the series,"
into the dogmatic "the unit is the cause," &c. In all my state-
ments this oversight follows me and colors them with the
same dogmatic absurdity, which however, from the very fact
of misemploying the word " is," is considered plausible and
reasonable by the multitude. The causality reasoner is a
dogmatic realist.

Reasoning, however, from the stand-point of substantial-
ity, I clearly perceive the error of the causality view with its
doctrines of a first cause, design, final end, &c., and remove
all these false notions by describing that unit as merely the
represented or thought unity of the fractions, as the concep-
tion of their common substance, of which they are merely
attributes, and of which, in itself, nothing can be predicated.
From the view of a considerate first cause, or creating God,
I am thus driven to a fatalistic acceptance of the nature of
the attributes, and their succession as such, simply because
they are so, and as, for that reason, the very best and wisest.
Spinoza dwells eloquently on the grand calm which this view
gives to the soul, and others have repeated it after him ; but

2 8

Spinoza. 381

this calmness and this sublimity are of a very problematic
character. The view is dogmatically idealistic, as opposed
to the realistic view of the causality stand-point, but its re-
pose in a fatalistic "it is so" has certainly no higher claim to
grandeur than the repose in a Final First Cause of the oppo-
site view. The causalist is in the sad predicament of being
unable to explain how he comes to attribute the predicate
cause, which he has taken from the finite world, to the con-
ception of the whole infinite totality ; but neither can the
aubstantialist explain how he can apply the conception of
substance, which he has also taken from the finite world, to
the totality of an infinity of attributes, and how the one
substance ever changed or could change into an infinity of
attributes. The defender of each category can overthrow
his opponent; neither can maintain his own proposition.
Nor are the views that result from the reciprocal relation of
both conceptions, to-wit,

(1) Quantitative Substantialism,

(2) Qualitative Substantialism,

(3) Quantitative Causalism,

(4) Qualitative Causalism,

any more calculated to give real calm, quiet, and light.
Where, then, does the light dwell ? As before said, not in
any particular tiew^ this or that view, but in a complete
surveying of the whole region of knowing as having these
views and having them necessarily, since otherwise it would
not be knowing at all. The true light is not, therefore, to be
found in a system, to speak accurately ; not to be objecti-
vated into a dead conception ; it can only be lived, experi-
enced, applied. He who has made this survey carries this
everlasting light always within him, and through it beholds
all phenomena and all systems of phenomena. To him no
corner of the universe is hidden in darkness ; all the possi-
ble views of it he, from his survey, knows beforehand, and
can at all times apply. He knows that he can and must view
the totality ,of the infinite series as a substance, by relating
himself to it ; he knows also that he can and must view it,
if he wants so to relate himself to it, as the cause of the
series: but he knows moreover, and supremely, that these
views, and their subordinate views, are views of his know-

2 8 1

382 Spinoza.

ing ; that it is Ms knowing which puts forth both the views
and their relating links.

Now, if the ego were merely a faculty of becoming self-con-
scious, merely a theoretical faculty, or pure intellect, as We
have hitherto supposed the fraction to be, we should have to
stop here at this ultimate and absolute development of the
intellectual faculty into supreme, everlasting clearness. But
now let us further suppose that the fraction is to become con-
scious of itself as an absolute original activity ; is to be not
only a knowing intellect, but also and preeminently a practi-
cal activity in that world which we have seen to arise through
the mere assumption of its theoretical faculty ; and let us
watch the result. The points to be kept in mind are these :

That the fraction, or monad, or ego, is such an active pow-
er, is simply asserted as a fact, just as its being an intellec-
tual power is known to us simply as a fact.

That although both powers are necessarily related to each
other — namely, in this, that they are both activities — they
are also absolutely, qualitatively, opposed to each other in
this, that the so-called active or practical power has direct
causality upon the universe of space and matter, whereas the
so-called intellectual or theoretical power has no such direct
causality at all, but merely an indirect causality by means
of the practical causality, and has direct causality only
upon itself.

That neither power can be derived — deduced — from the
other, though at the same time neither can by itself be com-
prehended without the other ; but that both are the original,
absolute constituents of the ego, monad, or fraction, which
is their synthesis and nothing else whatever.

The absolute qualitative distinction between thinking and
extension Spinoza reluctantly enough admits, as we have seen,
though he does not and cannot explain it ; but an absolute
distinction between the thinking faculty of the ego and its
practical or moral faculty he is so utterly opposed to, that
the Ethics may be said to have been written for no other
purpose than to disprove it. In his letters, where he treats
the matter at issue, namely, the freedom of the active
power, with more than usual candor, he expresses himself
thus:

2Hi

Spinoza. 383

" When I said in my last letter that we are inexcusable,
because we are in the hands of God like clay in- the hands of
the potter, I wished this to be taken in the sense that no one
has a title to reproach God with having given him a weak
body or an impotent mind. For as it would be absurd if the
circle complained that God had not given it the properties
of the sphere . . . even so would it be absurd did a man of
feeble soul complain that God had denied him strength of
understanding and true knowledge and love of God himself,
and moreover bestowed upon him so impotent a nature that
he could neither control nor get the better of his appetites.
... A horse is excusable for being a horse and not a man,
but in spite of this he must continue in his state . . . and
he who cannot subdue his passions nor hold them in check
even with the terrors of the law before him, although he may
be held excusable on the ground of his infirmity of nature,
cannot enjoy true peace of mind or have any knowledge or
love of God, but necessarily perishes."

Again :

" To your second query . . . I reply that neither the
honest man nor the thief can do aught to cause pleasure or
displeasure to God. If the question, however, be, whether
the deeds of these, in so far as they include anything real
and are caused by God, are alike perfect ? I answer : if we
regard the deeds only, it may be that both are equally per-
fect ... If, finally, you ask what should move you to
aspire to or to do that which I characterize as virtuous rather
than anything else ? I say, / cannot know which of the infi-
nite motives Ood has at His disposal, He may employ to de-
termine you to such a course."

In another place, taking the example of a stone thrown by
some hamd, and hence impelled by an external cause :

" Now conceive, further, that the stone as it proceeds in its
motion thinks and knows that it is striving, so far as in it
lies, to continue in motion ; then, inasmuch as it is conscious
only of its endeavor and in nowise indifferent, it will believe
itself to be most free, and to persevere in its motion from no
other cause than that it wills to do so. And this is precisely
that human freedom of which all boast themselves possessed,
but which consists of this alone : that men are conscious of
their desires, and ignorant of tJie causes by which these are
determined.''''

To remove the last objection, that we might be free at least
in thinking, Spinoza adds :
"Your friend, however, affirms that we can use our reason

2 8 3

384 Spinoza.

with perfect freedom . . . ' Who,' he asks, ' without a
contradiction of his proper consciousness, can deny that he
is free to think his thoughts, to write what he pleases, or to
leave writing alone?' . . . I for my part, and that I may
not contradict my consciousness — that is, that I may not
contradict reason and experience, and yield to ignorance
and prejudice — deny that I possess any absolute power of
tMnking, and that at pleasure I can will, or not will, to do
this or that — to write, for example."

In the Inelancholy history of the human race there are
wonderful instances of blindness, lunacy, or whatever we
may charitably call it; such instances as are furnished by
those who keep up the search for perpetual motion, the
squaring of the circle, the descent of man, the origin of the
world, the evolution of thought from phosphorus, and the
like self-contradictions. But can there be one more striking
than this ? —

One of the self-conscious fractions of a series, Benedict
Spinoza, arises and says : " I deny that I can will, or not
will, to do this or that, think this or that." For, if he can-
not will, of what earthly value is this, in that case, enforced
declaration ? Another fraction, X, Y, or Z, arises and says :
"I can will, or not will, so to do or think." Now, if that other
fraction's statement is, as it is by Spinoza's own principle,
equally enforced, necessitated, by the same substance, is it
not also of the same validity ? Yet, how is even this pos-
sible ? How is it possible that there should enter into a
thinking series of individuals, all of whom are absolutely
determined in all their thinking, the mere conception of
freedom? How can this new element, not in any way con-
tained in any part or the whole of the series, enter it ? The
absurdity is not worth wasting words about.

The example of the stone in the above letter, which seems
to have been considered strikingly clear by Spinoza, is also a
very unfortunate illustration, and moreover a defective state-
ment of the case. For the stone, to make a case in point, should
have the consciousness not only of the one motion given to it,
but at the same time of innumerable other motions in other di-
rections, with a consciousness of a — real or assumed-^power
to choose between them ; for such is the case in man, Spi-
noza himself mentioning men's desires in the plural. Now,

28 5

Spinoza. 385

amplify the statement to this extent ; give the stone such
power to move in various directions ; let it choose, after hesi-
tation, which direction it will take ; and in the sense in which
the word "free" has any meaning at all, the stone is free.

It is very true that you may tell me that I am not free in
making a choice — I am merely following my strongest im-
pulse, an impulse that is part and parcel of nature ; but this
your statement is merely a metaphysical reasoning of yours,
which you can never prove, whilst my assertion is the state-
ment of a fact. Nay, furthermore, if you cavil at this, I can
show to you clearly, firstly, that you can never prove that in
acting I follow merely a natural impulse, such a proof being
impossible; and secondly, when you turn upon me and assert
that I also cannot prove that I act freely, I can demonstrate
to you that your retort is absurd ; for if I could prove it by
a theoretical proof, i.e. by showing you the connecting link,
or cause, I would by that very proof demonstrate it to be not
a free act. A free act must be undemonstrable, must be sim-
ply an individual fact, if it is at all to be ; hence each indi-
vidual can have only positive knowledge of it by the fact of
its occurring in him.

It is also useless to more than notice the fact, that Spinoza,
in the latter parts of his Ethics — those parts which treat of
the aflfections, passions, and the power of the will to control
these psychological and physiological phenomena, and which
parts have often been praised by men, who had become dis-
contented with the undeniably fatalistic view of the first two
parts, as of superior sublimity, and as affording an harmoni-
ous reconciliation with the view of freedom— that in them
Spinoza falls into the similar self-contradiction of urging his
readers to do certain things, whilst he utterly denies their
power to do, or not to do, at will. Of course, every fatalist,
who ever spoke or thought, failed not to indulge in this
absurdity of nevertheless speaking and thinking as if men
were free ; but in Spinoza this contradiction is particularly
conspicuous. For in these appeals of his he often grows
quite eloquent and impassioned, speaking as if he truly be-
lieved, as he undoubtedly did, that men could adopt, or not
adopt, at will, his views ; and yet in the same breath ridicul-
ing, with vehement polemical bitterness, the supposition of
'9 2 8.^

386 Spinoza.

freedom. The fact that he uses the word "freedom" through-
out, he tries to excuse by explaining that he uses it as the
equivalent for " beatitude"; but this is either a crude word-
blunder, or another of his innumerable subterfuges. Of these
latter, there occurs one in this connection, which is the last
of the kind and that we shall attempt to point out. Scouting
the proposition that such conceptions of universal validity
as " good" and " bad" exist, and that " good" and " bad" are
other than merely subjective feelings, \^fhich change with
every individual, he instances the effect of music, which, he
says, may be good for one person and bad for another.

If this were not mere trickery, it were hard to find a suita-
ble expression for it. People certainly do talk loosely, and
some persons may speak of music, in a metaphorical way, as
good or bad; though there are appropriate musical adjec-
tives that would accurately describe the conception to be
conveyed ; but does anyone pretend to say that the words
"good" and "bad," when thus loosely applied to music, have
that particular moral meaning against which alone Spinoza
intended to direct his attacks ? Is there anything in a mor-
ally good or bad act of a human being which could be made
applicable to the eflfect of music in this manner ?

The chief point which Spinoza raises in these latter parts
of his Ethics is this, that all reasoning, willing, desiring, &c.,
are simply so many psychological and physiological condi-
tions — conditions which he in these parts gathers, postulates,
defines, and axiomates, in the same arbitrary, empirical way
in which the first parts are put together; and that they are
conditions of the two chief attributes, thinking and extension,
which he in the Second Part had postulated as those of the one
substance. As such conditions they are, of course, held to-
gether by the chain of causality, which rules this series of
conditions, and are completely determined in every manner.
Spinoza goes so far in his polemic against the possibility of
a free act in these conditions — that is, an act by which some-
thing entirely new could be brought into the series, having no
causal connection whatever with the preceding — that he de-
nies (Part in., Prop. 2) the power of the soul ^;o do anything
but what it remembers. All the arts — above all, the art of
music — this supreme human creation out of nothingness may,

2 8 6

Spinoza. 387

therefore, be said to have had for him no existence ; the moral
universe he had no eye to see. Morality is, by his doctrine,
to act " for one's own advantage" (Part IV., Prop. 24) ; to be
free is to follow "that which we have recognized as the most
important in life, and which we therefore most desire" (Part
IV., Prop. 66) ; to extend our knowledge and cultivate our
intellect is the only "good"; and the only "evil" and "sin" is
not to do so ; and the one is good only because it renders us
more happy, as the other is bad only because it does not
make our happ»iess so complete ; though any one might just
as well reverse these propositions for his individual case,
since, being merely postulates of Spinoza's own empirical
experience as to what he found productive of happiness in
him, they can be overthrown by the empirical dictum of any
other individual. As regards the immortality of the indivi-
dual, he being a mere condition of the one substance in ex-
tended bodily form, there is of course no chance for it. (See
Part v., Prop. 21 & 23, particularly the last sentence.)

Having thus sketched Spinoza's view of the possibility of
free acts, as they appear when regarded from the stand- point
of the substantiality-category, let us return to the instance
of the assumed fraction and see how it will look upon this
matter of freedom when unfettered by either category; in
all likelihood it will in that very way get with its freedom a
real God in place of the antropomorphic First Cause and the
shadow of a represented Universal Substance. The curious
in such matters would do well also to refer to Leibnitz's New
System of Nature, &c., in No. 3, vol. v., of the Journal of
Speculatine Philosophy., and examine there how the greatest
mind, taking it all in all, that Oermany has produced, has
developed the same matter in his own inimitable way.

The fraction, then, we will suppose no longer to have for
its problem only the development of self-consciousness, but
the problem to become conscious of itself as a free activity.
We will assume that it is no longer a mere theoretical frac-
tion, a mere intellect becoming conscious of itself, and the
chief— nay, only — aim whereof would be, as in Spinoza's
system it logically enough is, to develope this intellectual
consciousness; but that it is also, synthetically with that

2 8 7

388 Spinoza.

theoretical faculty, a practical faculty — a power to do, to
act, to create — under which assumption it appears even
now already, that the theoretical faculty will likely turn
out to be not the primary, the end, but the secondary, the
means ; in short, that the intellect is the means whereby we
are enabled to become the creators of a world within a world
— of a new, never before existent, not yet and never in time
to be completed, moral universe.

The fraction could certainly not become conscious of itself
as a free, active being by means of its power to become con-
scious generally, its theoretical power ; for by that power it
would have to view every free act of its own under the two
forms of causality and substantiality, o» their reciprocal de-
terminations, under all of which forms the view of freedom
is impossible, as has been abundantly shown. It would,
therefore, have to become conscious of itself as such a free,
moral being in quite another manner. What is this man-
ner ? Only the fact can tell ; as only the fact also tells of
the existence of the theoretical faculty in any fraction. It is,
therefore, to be taken as a mere assertion, that this manner
is an immediate consciousness, an impelling activity, which
can assign or discover no ground for its impulsion, but knows
itself immediately to be the sole ground of its exercise. Lan-
guage has called this consciousness by different names : the
voice of conscience, the voice of God, genius, the moral law
in us, the categorical imperative, &c. That this is the man-
ner in which the assumed fraction becomes conscious of itself
as free, we have confessed to be a mere assertion; but that
the assumed fraction must in some manner so become con-
scious is necessary under the assumption ; and each one can
settle the matter for himself, a dispute on it being impossi-
ble, or idle. Now, let this assumed self-conscious fraction
act in this absolutely free manner, do a deed or leave a deed
undone in tlie universe already given to it by its theoretical
faculty, the unive'\s of time and space,— how will this deed
appi-ar to it? Evidently .'iccompanied with the consciousness
of an absolute deed, indc;i)cndent of all other phenomena or
deeds that occur or may have occurred in the time and space
universe ; of a deed beyond the possibility of any doubt re-

Spinoza. 389

moved from any nexus with whatever other world of desires,
affections, sympathies, psychological and physiological ma-
nifestations, might have been furnished to it by the theoreti-
cal faculty ; of a deed, solely and utterly its own, expressing
its own absoluteness, timelessness, and independence ; the
consciousness of an absolute harmony of the deed and the
doer, awaking perhaps in the lower psychological and phy-
siological affections feelings of self-reverence, self-awe, self-
respect. Having tasted this absoluteness and unutterable
bliss of freedom once, it seems impossible that the fraction
would ever be able to forget or discard it.

But now, how would this same deed appear unto another
fraction ? If that other fraction had also arrived at such self-
consciousness of its absolute freedom, it might take in the
true character of the deed, though it never could with cer-
tainty, since the essential characteristic could be known only
to the self-consciousness of the other individual fraction —
hence the morality of a deed is not a subject for dispute ; —
but if it had not arrived at such a self-consciousness, and
were still merely a theoretical intelligence, it would and could
view it only as it viewed other phenomena in its serial world,
that is, either as the effect of previous causes, or as a fatal-
istic attribute of the one substance.

Leaving this point, as sufficiently exhausted, it remains to
be seen in what manner the theoretical faculty of the morally
free and self-consciously free fraction would now treat and
view these new phenomena given to it, for, as occurring in
the same consciousness, it could not help becoming conscious
of them and their particular character ; though certainly it
might, as also free, either ignore the problem altogether, as
the so-called common people do, or blindly insist on sub-
ordinating them to its own categories, as all philosophers
did so subordinate until Kant, and as all do again now. The
problem before it would be : how can I arrive at a compre-
hension of this co-existence of two worlds within another,
one of which I must regard under the categories of my purely
theoretical faculty, since otherwise I could not comprehend
its phenomena ; and the other of which I must regard as the
absolute creatio_n of myself and other free moral fractions
like myself, the one the kingdom of the world, the other the
1 9 » ix— 19 2 8 9

390 Spinoza.

kingdom of God ? For this reason : through its theoretical
faculty the fraction is to -explain to itself the possibility
of the co-existence of an infinite number of free acts on
the part of infinite fractions in their common tim^ and
space world; and this co- existence must be thought, and
hence must be thinkable. That they cannot be thought
under the categories of the theoretical faculty, causality
and substantiality, has been abundantly shown ; the think-
ing them together, relating them to each other, is, there-
fore, of an entirely different character, and needs as such a
new name. You may call it moral order of the universe, pre-
established harmony, or whatever other term seems best to
you, so it signify a new, distinct thought. Furthermore, they
must be so thought together in all their infinite occurrences ;
hence as thus harmonious in their totality as well as in each
separate occurrence ; as in each instance full, complete, ab-
solute, expressing the whole totality, and yet in each instance
but a part of it ; expressing it fully, but infinitely newly ;
the acts of infinite individual gods, expressing infinitely in
the world of their theoretical faculty, and thus making mani-.
fest to themselves by its means that absolute mroral freedom
which they must regard as harmonizing in those infinite acts,
and the harmonizing unity whereof, which never enters the
world of the theoretical faculty, they, worshipping, call God.
Foolish, therefore, beyond all description, to apply to free-
dom and to God that theoretical faculty which has for its
function simply to make visible the absolute freedom to an
infinite number of self-conscious beings, each of whom is
and must be partaker of that freedom ; foolish to argue and
reason metaphysically about their nature, essence, and sub-
stance, when they are altogether of another world, a world
which has only one attribute : Absoluteness, or Freedom. —
This absoluteness and its essential characteristic, it has al-
ready been said, was first discovered, and thereby the moral
world first truly created, by Jesus Christ. This fullness of
Ood in us he first brought to clear consciousness, and as such
utterly distinctive knowledge he gave it utterance: not by
theoretical reasoning, but by the immediate utterance of the
fact. Hence his wonderful self-reverence — the Son of God ;
hence also his wonderful humility — the Son of man.

2 9

Spinoza. 391

Iq these days of shallow reasoning and loose language, the
comparing of Christ with Socrates, Buddha, Confucius, &c.,
has again become as common as it was with Voltaire's
friends. To any one who reads the sayings of Christ and the
sayings of either of those men with an unprejudiced mind,
the dissimilarity is rather that which is most, apparent.
Take Socrates, as the most generally known, 3,nd take him
either as Xenophon or Plato reports him, and his character-
istic is argument — cleverness in the use of the theoretical
faculty and its two categories. Argument on all things and
subjects; argument with the sculptor how to embellish his
art ; with the prostitute, how to increase the number of her
customers; with whomsoever lists, pro or con., any abstract
proposition whatsoever.

Take Christ, and the reiterated burden of his words is : I
am the Son of God ; ye are all children of God ; citizens of an
eternal life, of an invisible world in this very world of our
theoretical faculty. He never argues; he only tells the fact:
yet this distinctive character of freedom, and hence of God,
that it can only be told as fact and not \)Q proved — that is, if
you take the word "proved" in its ordinary sense, as mean-
ing " demonstrated by connecting links," though, of course,
in this sense, you can also not prove to me that I live and see
or hear— was lost sight of by nearly all his followers, till it
was in a most singular way rediscovered by Immanuel Kant
in an independent, scientific way, and after him more clearly
expounded by Fichte in a complete Science of Knowledge.

Spinoza closes his Ethics with a reference to the calm his
doctrine gives to the soul. The nature of this calm, a fatal-
istic resignation or acquiescence, seasoned with whatever
pleasure may be gained from a cultivation of the theoretical
intellect, we have already seen. It may be well to refer to
the eflfect the view of freedom gives to the soul.

On the one hand, it must be confessed, supremest agony.
To be a member of a world of absolutely free individuals,
and become conscious of the history of this world so far as
it has yet manifested itself in time and space through the
theoretical faculty ; to see how through six thousand years
of conscioup life these individual gods, each one with the
same faculty of absolute divinity, have tottered, limped,

25i

392 Spinoza.

struggled, fought ; committed absurdities, stupidities, errors,
crimes ; plunged headlong into slavery, misery, and unspeak-
able degradation ; fallen into cowardice the most shameful,
laziness the most disgusting, self-debasement the most loath-
some ; how their own sublime faculties have been subverted
to torturing their better and more aspiring members with
their doubt and despair; how they honor their Pharisees and
crucify their Christs ; and in what awful abysses of mental
and physical sufltering so many of them are wallowing, — is
horrible ! Men speak of the sufferings of Christ on the
cross ! They were paltry, insignificant ; the mere torture
of physical flesh and bone. "Where he sufl'ered was in Geth-
semane ; how he must have suffered ! "With all this con-
sciousness of the agony and misery of his fellow-gods upon
his soul ! The lamb of God, carrying and staggering under
the sins of the world !

On the other hand, ecstasy unutterable ! To be conscious
of yourself as an absolutely self-subsistent, free, creative
individual, a co-maker and builder of a wondrous universe,
rising with every moment of your existence into newer and
clearer shape and being, and when you turn by your own
free choice your life from this your proper home with God
to the other home of your theoretical faculty, whereby you
realize it to your consciousness, to the world of nature ; to
know that here there is no longer any secret and mystery
for you ; to see clearly every atom even of this home re-
flect in an infinitely varied way the reflected beauty of your
own kingdom of God ; to have all the possible modes of
thinking of your mind always ready to apply to every phe-
nomenon and collection of phenomena, and be able to gather
the infinite representations of infinite wonders and beau-
ties into their fundamental views, and these again in the
phenomena of your own world of freedom in one grand
view ; to live day and night this eternal life hand in hand
with God, He in you and you in Him ; not even to know the
meaning of death, since an infinite free activity to become
conscious must most assuredly receive birth, and is by that
birth alone distinct from God, bat can never exhaust its
activity, nor the self-consciousness of it, since the activity
works infinitely new shapes and forms for that self-con-

2 3 .i

Notes on Shakespeare^ s " Tempest." 393

to be thus inaccessible to all the miseries,
terrors, fears, and uncertainties of life ; clear, determined,
radiantly blessed in your own selfhood ; suflfering that ago-
ny of hell and sin only when you voluntarily enter it to help
to achieve the redemption of men even as Christ did, — this is
an existence so glorious that it cannot even ask itself seri-
ously the absurd question of a why or a wherefore.

NOTES OP A CONVERSATION ON SHAKESPEARE'S

" TEMPEST."

[Held at the Jacksonviile Plato Club, by H. K. JoNss, and reported by Mrs. Sarah Denhan.]

In Shakespeare is consummated and celebrated the mar-
riage of the Greek and Scandinavian cultures. The Greek
age, the age of the ideal, the thought power, the fatherhood ;
the Scandinavian, the age of the actual, the will power, born
of the heroic earth energies, the motherhood. And out of this
Scandinavian maternity is the issue of the "Viking power,"
which leads modern enterprise ; and without the marriage of
these two cultures, the child, the realized Christianity of this
age, coiild not have been born. Therefore, in Shakespeare
are we historically in the fountains of modern Christian
thought and achievement.

Shakespeare is not writing history or story, nor exhibiting
mere gamboUings of the imagination. His purpose is deep
and living. He is portraying that which is eternal in the
human, soul ; therefore he is immortal.

The "Tempest" is his programme. The unifying idea and
key to the play is Life, in the world of time and sense.
^' Tempest" does not mean a storm, but is from " tempus"
and signifies Life, and the two ways of life under the Divine
Providences : the way of the providential and the fated expe-
riences. To the man of righteousness and justice, the visible
and invisible powers are subservient ; to the man of injustice
and evil, the same powers are dominant. The latter is fated,

or destined, as in the speech of Ariel :

2 9 3